Monitoring of the patients environment, and the personnel and materials with which they come in contact, is the purpose of this continuing project. Examples of activities for this project during the past year were: 1) use of an improved medium for detection of Staphylococcus aureus carriers; 2) evaluation of a new product for skin decontamination; 3) monitoring of air for fungal spores and detection of curtains as a heavily contaminated source of fungal spores; 4) detection of unsatisfactory decontamination procedures for isolation rooms that have been used by heavy shedders of pathogens; 5) a comparison of methods for sink drain decontamination; 6) continued surveillance of protective environment rooms; and 7) surveillance of hotel rooms which house cancer patients undergoing therapy on an out-patient basis. In addition, cultures of the patients' physical environment within the hospital are performed on a routine basis and reviewed for sources of contamination.